LXXXVII.

Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife: Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life: From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleed. So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed! 1

at the siege of Saragoza. [In his proclamations, also, he stated,
that, should the French commit any robberies, devastations, and
murders, no quarter should be given them. The dogs by whom
he was beset, he said, scarcely left him time to clean his sword
from their blood, but they still found their grave at Saragoza.
All his addresses were in the same spirit. "His language," says
Mr. Southey, "had the high tone, and something of the inflation
of Spanish romance, suiting the character of those to whom it was
directed." See History of the Peninsular War, vol. iii. p. 152]
1 The Canto, in the original MS., closes with the following
stanzas:-

Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,
Sights, Saints, Antiques, Arts, Anecdotes, and War,

Go! hie ye hence to Paternoster Row

Are they not written in the Book of Carr*,

Green Erin's Knight and Europe's wandering star!

Then listen, readers, to the Man of Ink,

Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar;

All these are coop'd within one Quarto's brink,

This borrow, steal,- don't buy, and tell us what you think.

There may you read, with spectacles on eyes,
How many Wellesleys did embark for Spain,
As if therein they meant to colonize,

How many troops y-cross'd the laughing main

Porphyry said, that the prophecies of Daniel were written after their completion, and such may be my fate here; but it requires no second sight to foretel a tome: the first glimpse of the knight was enough. [In a letter written from Gibraltar, August 6. 1809, to his friend Hodson, Lord Byron says, "I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz; and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white."]

LXXXVIII.

Flows there a tear of pity for the dead?
Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain;
Look on the hands with female slaughter red;
Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain,
Then to the vulture let each corse remain;
Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw,

Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching stain,
Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe:
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw !

That ne'er beheld the said return again:
How many buildings are in such a place,
How many leagues from this to yonder plain,
How many relics each cathedral grace,

And where Giralda stands on her gigantic base.

There may you read (Oh, Phoebus, save Sir John!
That these my words prophetic may not err)
All that was said, or sung, or lost, or won,

By vaunting Wellesley or by blundering Frere,
He that wrote half the "Needy Knife-Grinder."*
Thus poesy the way to grandeur paves-

Who would not such diplomatists prefer?

But cease, my Muse, thy speed some respite craves, Leave Legates to their house, and armies to their graves.

Yet here of mention may be made,
Who for the Junta modell'd sapient laws,
Taught them to govern ere they were obey'd:
Certes, fit teacher to command, because
His soul Socratic no Xantippe awes;
Blest with a dame in Virtue's bosom nurst,
With her let silent admiration pause! -
True to her second husband and her first :
On such unshaken fame let Satire do its worst.

[The "Needy Knife-grinder," in the Anti-jacobin, was a joint production of Messrs. Frere and Canning.]

LXXXIX.

Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done; Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees : It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees More than her fell Pizarros once enchain'd: Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustain❜d, While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrain❜d.

XC.

Not all the blood at Talavera shed,

Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,
Not Albuera lavish of the dead,

Have won for Spain her well asserted right.

When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight? When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil? How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil, And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil!

XCI.

And thou, my friend! 1 since unavailing woe
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain-
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain :
But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain,

1 The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra (May 14. 1811). I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month, I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction :

"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain,
And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.

By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,

And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest! What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest?

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. [This and the following stanza were added in August, 1811. In one of his school-boy poems, entitled "Childish Recollections," Lord Byron has thus drawn the portrait of young Wingfield :

"Alonzo! best and dearest of my friends,

Thy name ennobles him who thus commends:
From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise;
The praise is his who now that tribute pays.
Oh! in the promise of thy early youth,

If hope anticipates the words of truth,

Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name,
To build his own upon thy deathless fame.
Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list
Of those with whom I lived supremely blest,
Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore,
Though drinking deeply, thirsting still for more;
Yet when confinement's lingering hour was done,
Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one.
In every element, unchanged, the same,

All, all that brothers should be, but the name." Matthews, the idol of Lord Byron at college, was drowned, while bathing in the Cam, on the 2d of August. The following passage of a letter from Newstead to his friend Scrope Davies, written immediately after the event, bears the impress of strong and even agonised feelings:-"My dearest Davies, Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in the house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch; what can I say, or think, or do? I received a letter from him the day before yesterday. My dear Scrope, if you can spare a moment, do come down to me-I want a friend. Matthews's last letter was written on Friday,—on Saturday he was not. In ability, who was like Matthews? How did we all shrink before him. You do me but justice in saying I would have risked my paltry existence to have preserved his. This very evening did I mean to write, inviting him, as I invite you,

XCII.

Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most! 1
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,
In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose.

XCIII.

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage: Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page, If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so: Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doom'd to go: Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell'd, 2

my very dear friend, to visit me. What will our poor Hobhouse feel? His letters breathe but of Matthews. Come to me, Scrope, I am almost desolate-left almost alone in the world!" Matthews was the son of John Matthews, Esq. (the representative of Herefordshire, in the parliament of 1802-6), and brother of the author of "The Diary of an Invalid," also untimely snatched away.]

["Beloved the most."— MS.]

2 ["Dec. 30th, 1809." - MS.]

E